Vehicular traffic congestion is the bother of the modern commuter and a potent poison of the rational mind. Traffic congestion results in high drains on national economics, as otherwise productive persons are frequently forced to endure long, unproductive delays. Not only does it cause delays and frazzled nerves, but traffic congestion also pollutes the air and wastes precious energy resources (gasoline).
Numerous methods exist to dynamically alter traffic flow to minimize traffic congestion and/or to mitigate its effects. All of these methods involve three basic steps: 1) recognizing congestion or potential congestion; 2) determining a corrective action and based on that, 3) altering the traffic flow (perhaps by simply changing the display of an electronic street sign or it appropriate, by moving physical lane barriers).
In one scenario, during the morning rush hour, one a particular roadway, traffic is heavy in one direction and in the evening rush hour traffic is heavy in the opposite direction. Typically, in this situation, traffic engineers make the recognition and determination steps beforehand. It is seen that these congestion patterns normally occur at the same time each day so timers are utilized to trigger the altering of the traffic flow. Using timers relies on the assumption that the traffic patterns remain consistent.
In a second scenario, major city intersections sometimes have real people stationed to manually direct traffic. This approach is a fairly reliable system, however there are some drawbacks. It, obviously, requires real people, which can be expensive. It subjects them to physical risk and (like every human endeavor) is prone to “user error”.
In a third scenario, major intersections may be visually monitored from remote “traffic control centers”. This solution is similar to the previous example, but has its own set of benefits and drawbacks. The “awareness” of sudden changes in conditions may be more apparent to someone who is physically there or perhaps not. Regardless, with this approach there is still the expense and potential “user error” associated with humans.
All of these systems are manual, involve human input and are prone to errors. It would be advantageous to have an automated control system that was dynamic in nature and would react to actual conditions.